Georgia Schools Superintendent John Barge told the federal Education Department Friday he will not implement a teacher evaluation system that might not work and could lead to lawsuits.
Barge, in a letter to Ann Whalen, who oversees the federal Race to the Top program, said attorneys for Georgia schools determined that including student input in teacher evaluations is legally risky.
"I will not waste taxpayer dollars to defend a system that we have been warned will not work," Barge wrote.
Georgia's pledge to implement a new teacher evaluation system was part of the reason it won a $400 million federal, Race to the Top education grant.
Tinkering with its plans for that system got a $33 million chunk of that grant money placed on "high-risk" status by the U.S. Department of Education.
Barge's letter is part of the state's official response to the federal government's decision. Gov. Nathan Deal wrote his own response to Whalen on Tuesday.
In its winning application for Race to the Top funds, Georgia officials said they would implement a teacher evaluation system that includes student surveys of teachers.
That was then.
"The grant application was written by a different administration and was Georgia's best estimate of how we needed to proceed in order to achieve the goals outlined in the grant application," Barge wrote.
Georgia officials now believe the surveys, particularly from students in kindergarten through the second grade, should not be used as an official part of the evaluation system and should, instead, be informational.
They have said the surveys from young students are likely to uniformly positive, and they have questioned how appropriate it is for students to have a role in evaluating their teachers.
Teresa MacCartney, deputy superintendent for Race to the Top implementation in Georgia, said the state is concerned about potential legal action from teachers if they are denied a raise or face sanction because of student surveys, which, in the state's initial plan, would account for 10 percent of a teacher's formal evaluation.
"Our legal counsel has advised that, without changes, we will subject the state to a potentially highly litigious situation," Barge wrote.
The federal government granted Georgia's request to drop the student surveys from students in kindergarten through the second grade, but it wants the state to demonstrate more clearly how it would use surveys from older students.
Georgia has until August 1 to lay out how it plans to alter its evaluation system to include surveys from those older students.
MacCartney said the state will meet that deadline. Georgia, she said, simply has to provide documentation for a revised system it has already gone over with federal education officials.
Liz Utrup, assistant press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, said the department wants to hear from states with Race to the Top grants.
"The department communicates regularly with all Race to the Top grantees and has created an amendment process to help each state work through any challenges that arise or changes they feel are needed to accomplish the goals they have laid out in their plans," she said.
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